WOMEN CAN BE PRIESTS

In Good Company. Women in the Ministry

This is a unique collection of personal stories about the struggle for equality by women in the ministry and those still excluded from it.

The collection brings together the experiences of women from different denominations. Even though the differences between various churches is enormous, there is also a curious parallel between the stories in the prejudices and set communal practices that need to be overcome.

Women who have been ordained often have to live with stereotypes and assumptions; with personal and practical challenges.They may be subjected to tokenism, discrimination, trivialisation.They may be open to abuse and isolation. And eventually they find themselves up against the’stained glass ceiling’ created by the church’s obsession with power, rank and position.

Then there are those whose churches still do not even recognise the right of women to formalise a ministry that they are already carrying out in everything but name.

The book raises other questions. What about the priestly ministry itself? If the churches simply ‘add women and stir’, what difference, if any, does that make? If female ordained ministers are just incorporated into an old, stale recipe, is the church any fresher or more nourishing?

This book makes clear the kinds of obstacles in the way of women both in and outside the ministry and gives a glimpse of the faulty theology that underlies opposition to them. It highlights the challenge that women bring to existing church structures and offers hope for the future of a truly all-inclusive, all-afffirming and empowering ministry.

To give an impression of the book, just look at its table of contents (with the authors’ affiliations added by me):

“As a young girl I asked our teacher, a nun, why women could not be ordained? ‘Because Jesus only wanted men’, she said. I was shocked. The Church still holds this view today. Help us to open people’s minds so that this awful error can be corrected.”

Miriam Duignan, Vice Chair of the Board & Foundation Chair

Past and present visitors to our website

“I am a French woman, born in Paris. As soon as I knew God’s love for me, I experienced the call to become a priest. The Church holds back. We can’t even be deacons. But women would live out their ministries with female charism, doing things men never could.”